Understanding Twice-Exceptional (2e) Learners: When Strengths and Challenges Coexist
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Understanding Twice-Exceptional (2e) Learners: When Strengths and Challenges Coexist
Twice-exceptional (2e) learners possess a paradox of traits: high intellectual ability, deep curiosity, or specialized passions paired simultaneously with learning differences such as ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, autism, or anxiety. Because their strengths frequently mask their disabilities—and their struggles often obscure their brilliance—many 2e students fall through the cracks, perceived as "unmotivated" or merely "average," while carrying significant internal frustration and anxiety.
In this community presentation, Dr. Abby Kirigin, Executive Director of REEL, provides an in-depth roadmap for recognizing, understanding, and supporting 2e children through a strengths-first lens.
1. What Does Twice-Exceptionality Really Look Like?
Twice-exceptionality is an integral part of the broader neurodiverse spectrum. Research shows that learning and attention differences occur within the gifted population at rates matching or exceeding the general population:
Dyslexia: 5% to 20% of gifted learners have a learning disability like dyslexia.
ADHD: Nearly 9% of children with ADHD are identified as gifted, and almost 19% of gifted underachievers meet the criteria for inattentive ADHD.
Autism: Between 2% and 20% of autistic learners are gifted.
Because high intellect enables 2e students to compensate in early grades, diagnoses are often delayed. However, this ongoing compensation takes a heavy toll, frequently leading to heightened anxiety, perfectionism, sensory overload, and eventual burnout when academic demands escalate.
2. The 2e Classroom Experience (The Empathy Simulation)
To demonstrate the cognitive exhaustion experienced by 2e students, Dr. Kirigin guided participants through a two-part writing exercise. While writing about their morning was effortless, writing about their favorite passion under arbitrary cognitive constraints (avoiding common words and substituting letters) caused output to plummet, handwriting to deteriorate, and frustration to mount.
This mismatch—having profound, complex ideas but struggling with the mechanics of output—mirrors what 2e students experience daily. When forced to operate under these deficits without accommodation, children often respond with behaviors that baffle teachers: shutting down, using humor, avoiding tasks, or acting out.
3. Profiles in Asynchronous Development
Dr. Kirigin shared five case profiles illustrating how 2e traits interact:
Autistic + ADHD: High abstract math and verbal reasoning masked by slow processing speed and dysgraphia. Standard worksheets feel both agonizingly slow and conceptually unstimulating, causing math performance to appear deceptively average.
Stealth Dyslexia: A student whose superior comprehension enables them to guess words and pass early reading screeners, only to hit an academic wall in upper elementary or middle school as reading volume and speed surge.
ADHD + Dysgraphia: A highly articulate, imaginative child who resists written expression because handwriting is physically painful. Once allowed to type, his ability to demonstrate knowledge flourished.
Overlooked Autistic Girls: Girls without intellectual disabilities are diagnosed an average of three years later than boys. Many internalize their distress, developing severe anxiety, school avoidance, and skin-picking before receiving appropriate sensory and executive support.
Early Identification & Accommodation: A verbally brilliant student with dyslexia and ADHD who thrived because early tutoring, keyboard accommodations, and ADHD support were implemented before his self-concept suffered.
4. The DEAR REEL Framework
REEL trains educators and parents to support twice-exceptional students through four core lenses:
D – Develop Connection: Build trust and intentional relationships so the child feels understood and psychologically safe.
E – Embrace Flexibility: Offer diverse pathways for students to absorb information and express knowledge (e.g., oral presentations, typing, assistive tech).
A – Attend to Strengths: Ground learning, remediation, and daily routines in the child’s innate passions and talents.
R – Reframe Behaviors: Recognize that unexpected behaviors (avoidance, hyperactivity, emotional outbursts) are communications of an unmet need or a skill mismatch, not willful defiance.
5. Actionable Strategies for Parents
Identify Innate Strengths: Ask what your child is naturally curious about, what they gravitate toward during free time, and consult teachers about when their eyes light up.
Reframe the Narrative: Shift from deficit-based labels (e.g., distracted, impulsive, rigid) to asset-based strengths (e.g., creative risk-taker, idea generator, deeply focused).
Provide Low-Stakes Growth Opportunities: Foster an identity of lifelong learning at home. Offer choices for independent passion projects (e.g., an 8-week commitment to explore a hobby or museum research) rather than forced drills.
Discuss Diagnoses Openly: Be honest, positive, and realistic. Hiding a diagnosis can make it feel shameful; understanding both their gifts and their challenges empowers kids to self-advocate.
Read the Transcript
Yael: Welcome, everyone, to this talk about understanding Twice-Exceptional TUI learners when Strengths and Challenges Coexist. There is a Spanish translation live available, so if you can share that in the chat, Callie, that'd be great.
Yael: So REEL is a nonprofit that ensures neurodivergent, twice-exceptional students thrive by raising parent and educator awareness and understanding of practical, research-based strategies to address their educational needs successfully.
Yael: And in case you're not familiar with the term 2E, Abby's doing an entire talk about this, so I'm going to skip it quickly, but it is children that have distinguishing strengths and complex challenges simultaneously.
Yael: REEL provides this expert speaker series that you're currently seeing, and we have many other events coming up. We have a monthly parent support group, a private Google group where you can ask and answer each other's questions, a parent toolkit, and other online resources, a schools list, and school guidance, and those are all available at no cost. The only small fees that we charge are for one-on-one consultations and small facilitated groups.
Yael: In addition, we offer educator services. We offer custom professional development, so you can bring REEL to your school to talk about things like learning different simulations, and this type of workshop about introduction to 2E, among others. And we have many resources, newsletters, and recorded talks for educators as well.
Yael: This is part of our See the Whole Child campaign for this year, acknowledging that the way we see children shapes the way that they learn to see themselves, and when we look beyond their challenges and focus on their strengths, we can unlock their full potential.
Yael: So we are coming to the end of this semester's events, but we still do have a talk on November 10th about looking beyond social skills and helping neurodivergent kids build authentic friendships. And on November 12th, our parent support group will be covering how to help your child develop their self-awareness and self-advocacy. So we hope you can join us for those, and recordings of our past events are available on our website. You can connect with other parents of two eLearners on our Google group, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and see our past recordings on YouTube.
Yael: Our speaker for today is Abby Kirigin, the Executive Director of REEL. And I will just bring up her bio. Wow, my computer is crashing.
Yael: So, Abby Kirgan, Ed.D, is REEL's Executive Director and Co-Director of Educator Programs. Abby worked in tech and startups as an interaction designer for several years before pivoting to education as a result of raising her own TUI children. She holds a doctorate of education from the Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity and Education, where she developed a curriculum to support neurodivergent middle schoolers in strengths-based career exploration. shields a master's degree in human-computer interaction from Carnegie Mellon and a BA from NYU. I will give the floor to you, Abby.
Abby: Alright, thank you. Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming today at lunch. Glad to see everyone.
Abby: Okay, let's just, jump right into it. You, you know a little bit about REEL. We are a non-profit, and as Yael said, we work with educators and with parents to support Twice-Exceptional learners.
Abby: And you also heard a little bit about me. But, you know, I just want to say you can email me anytime after this talk if you have any questions, and, you know, I do have a doctorate in education from Bridges Graduate School, but I'm also a parent of, three children, two of whom are twice exceptional. So, lots of experience, both professionally and personally in this space.
Abby: And to that end, I thought I would start, because this is a parent community, I thought I would let you know, you know, this is my son, this is photos from about, 10 years ago. And in first grade, my son was very, very curious, he was an inquisitive student, he was just a sponge for learning. And at the same time, he could not read. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how hard I tried to help him, no matter how many extra after-school, you know, sessions he spent with his teacher doing one-on-one support, nothing was working.
Abby: And, ultimately, he was diagnosed as Twice-Exceptional, and that was a phrase that I had never heard of before. And so, I started to do some research into it, learned what I could online, read books, met parents, joined communities. And I just came to understand that there were just so few people out there who really knew how to support Twice-Exceptional students. Very few parents understood it, very few educators understood it, and that's really why I got into this work, was to support these kind of students, not only my son, but all the others like him, so that teachers could support them better, and parents could understand them better.
Abby: And again, you saw this slide very quickly in Yael's opening. But what do we mean by that term, twice exceptionality, twice exceptional, or you might hear 2E? These are students who have distinguishing strengths, so they may be identified in a neuropsych evaluation as being gifted, or a teacher has highlighted their high abilities or potential or gifts or strengths in one or more areas.
Abby: And at the same time, they have complex challenges. Maybe they have dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD, autism, anxiety, etc. And these things don't just sort of happen sometimes, a student is one thing and sometimes another, but they really interact and form a unique whole individual, where things might mask each other, things get very complicated, things interact, and it requires sort of a different level of support than a student with only one or the other one.
Abby: Now, I really like this phrase, this quote from Seth Perler, who's quite a popular educational coach on YouTube. He says, in a nutshell, if you have a child who you know who's smart and bright, but who really struggles to show it, they may be 2E.
Abby: Now I want to step back a bit and talk about neurodiversity. So we talked a little bit about Twice-Exceptionality and what it is, and it is a, subset of neurodiversity. And really, when we talk about our neurodiverse community, our neurodiverse world, we are talking about all of us, all of humanity, that recognizes that we all have different brains. Now, some of us may have brains that are kind of as may be expected, maybe we call them neurotypical or neuronormative. And then there are others in our neurodiverse society who have ADHD brains, autistic brains, dyslexic brains, gifted brains, etc.
Abby: These are neurodivergent. These are also where we would put our Twice-Exceptional individuals. So folks, who are Twice-Exceptional, or any neurodivergence, and our folks who are neurotypical are all part of this rich tapestry of our neurodiverse community and our world. And it's really important to understand that, first to know that we're talking about everyone when we talk about neurodiversity, and the strategies that support individuals who are neurodivergent should also support students who are neurotypical and vice versa.
Abby: Let's talk a little bit about neurodiversity by the numbers. About 1 in 5 children have a learning or an attention difference, such as dyslexia, so 1 in 5, that's about 20%, and about approximately 9% have ADHD. 1 in 36 individuals who are 8 are identified as autistic. I think the number is closer to 1 in 22 in California. 1 in 16 public school students in the United States are identified to receive IEP services. So what you might see there in the discrepancy in those numbers, there are many students who are not formally identified, or who don't meet criteria for IEP services for a variety of reasons, including twice-exceptionality, and yet who do have a lot of these differences.
Abby: And I wanted to talk a little bit about the idea of being labeled gifted, specifically in response to some of the questions I saw in the, sign-up sheets for today's event. So, students who are identified as gifted have advanced scores on one or more evaluations, or that could be qualitative or quantitative. So, it could be that a teacher sees something in a child, sees some potential, understands something, or it could be that there's a certain test that was done that labels them this way. There's a variety of ways that a student could be identified.
Abby: And something that's really important to note is that high IQ, high potential, can sometimes be what I might want to call a burden, as well as a gift. So, you might see I put gift… gifted in quotes a lot of times, because I do feel like that kind of masks, a lot of the challenges that gifted individuals experience as well. You'll often find these students have a heightened sense of concern about the world, about the future. They do commonly have sensory sensitivities. This might be extra sensitivities to touch, or to sound, or to really any of the senses… any of the senses. Some extra sensitivities, this is a common co-occurrence, or something that you can see as a trait in gifted students.
Abby: And they are often prone to perfectionism. And so some of the questions we… I saw were, you know, things about how do we address this in our Twice-Exceptional students? And this is something I think we can talk about throughout the talk, but to note that these are things that come with some of these neurodivergences. Even ones that people might traditionally consider as purely positive. I think that's, a bit of a misnomer.
Abby: And I thought maybe if you guys are interested, while we're working here, putting in the chat some challenges that you've noticed in your gifted child, and also some strengths. I'll see if I can keep that open and see… see what I'm seeing as they… as you guys put them in there. So I encourage you to do that.
Abby: Now let's talk a little bit about neurodiversity among gifted learners. Again, this is where we're talking about those Twice-Exceptional profiles. And what we see is that these numbers are very, very similar. So again, we may expect, or someone who may not know, they may think gifted learners and neurodivergence can't go together, when in fact, they very much can. In fact, 5 to 20% of gifted learners may have a learning disability, like dyslexia. Again, that pretty much mirrors the numbers you saw, the 20% of the general population are dyslexic. 5-20% of the gifted learner population is dyslexic.
Abby: And then again, almost 9% of children with ADHD are identified as gifted. Again, 9% of the general population is identified as ADHD, so these things are very, very, aligned. And almost 19% of gifted underachievers, these are students who are identified as gifted and yet are unachieving in some way, not meeting milestones as expected, are meeting the referral criteria for ADHD inattentive type. Again, that's something you might see, where you see a student, just like Seth Perler said, they seem so bright, they seem so capable, yet they're not meeting their potential. Maybe there's something else going on, and that can be happening, again, in almost 19% of the time.
Abby: And 2-20% of autistic learners are gifted. And, critically, TUE students have a higher likelihood of being diagnosed late, because of all the masking, because of those, gifted abilities, or those high potential, high-achieving, aspects of their personality masking some of those struggles. And when they are… when it's undiagnosed, when we don't understand what's going on, and when we don't have that clarity, these students can often experience higher anxiety.
Abby: So, parents often ask, well, how would I know? So, here are some things that you might want to look for in your child. You see, some exceptional strengths, like high cognitive ability, excelling in a high interest area, again, very common for our two-week kids, you know, they have a passion area, a real area of interest that seems to go above and beyond, perhaps what you might expect of their age level. They participate well in class discussions, they're highly verbal. They are very humorous, they thrive on complexity. And they understand concepts quickly and easily.
Abby: And then at the same time, they may struggle with things like a lower-than-expected achievement. Critically, this may still be at grade level, so they… because of that masking, but it may be un… lower than expected for their personal profile, or what you may see as their potential. They appear unmotivated or lazy in areas that don't interest them. They may not follow through with implementation, so they may seem very eager, very, you know, participating in class, but then not following through, perhaps, with some of the assignments or written work. They do have, often, a difficulty with rote memorization, and they're often frustrated by performance requirements. And this… these are some things that, we've documented based on some research done at Fairfax County Public Schools.
Abby: Okay, so now I want to step back for a second and do a little exercise with all of you and talk… do, give you a sense of the Twice-Exceptional experience. So some of you may have done this before, but I always think it's a, it's a great, activity. So I'm going to ask that everyone here… I'm going to give you a moment and just grab a pen or paper, anything you can write on that you have near… nearby. I'll just give you a second to do that. And while I do that, I'll get out my timer. I'm gonna ask you to just do a quick writing activity. One second… Stopwatch? Okay, so… I want you to just… Spend 2 minutes and write about what you did this morning.
Abby: Again, and this is just to give you an example, a bit of an experience of what it's like to be a Twice-Exceptional learner. So, for 2 minutes, I'd like you to handwrite useful sentences, write as neatly as you can, and just tell me about your morning. So, you know, your alarm went off and you woke up, you walked the dogs, you had your coffee, you took your kids to school. Etc. And so… Again, I'll give you 2 minutes, so, please begin.
Abby: Right? Hopefully this is easy for you guys. The few people who are on screen seem to be diligently working. Thank you very much. Okay, you have about 1 minute left. Alright, you have a few, seconds left. Please finish up your last sentences. And you can go ahead and put your pencils down.
Abby: Okay, well, for those of you that were able to do that, I know some of you, you know, don't have pen and paper, that's okay, we're not gonna, not gonna, give you a grade, but I hope you all, you know, found that pretty straightforward, and were able to write long, you know, your light, nice, thorough paragraph describing what you did this morning. Very straightforward.
Abby: Okay, now I'm gonna have you do this exercise again, but I'm gonna give you something a little more interesting, something that, you know, as we discussed with our Twice-Exceptional Learners, many Twice-Exceptional learners have a real passion or an interest. Maybe they have a hobby, something like that, so I want you to take a moment and think of your own hobby, or passion, or interest, you know, something you just really love doing, or something you collect. Something like that, so just take a moment to think about that. I'm gonna ask you to write about that for 2 minutes now, so hopefully you're gonna have a lot to say. I'm just gonna give you a few restrictions this time.
Abby: Please do not use the words A and B to, for, have, in, of, that, or the. And please substitute a T for every letter B, and please substitute an A for every letter O. Okay. Two minutes begins now.
Abby: Great, I hope you're all, diligently writing. Please do your best work. We may share these afterwards, so I can hear what you guys have to say about your interests? Okay, about halfway done. I hope you have a good amount written. If I were a teacher, I might remind you that this is when, to make sure you do your best work, because we're going to be sharing these with your parents at back-to-school night. All right, you have a few seconds left. Please finish up the sentence you're working on and, put your pencils down.
Abby: Okay, I would love to hear… I know we have a lot of people in the room here, but if one or two people want to come off mute and tell me about your experience and how you felt about those two, or you want to put in the chat. I would love to hear, what you thought about the two experiences when you're comparing side-by-side the writing you did about your morning and the writing you did about your passion or interest. Anyone want to share in the chat? Okay, I see some… I see some comments, like, heartbreaking, I felt frozen.
Abby: Yeah, so some of the things, and feel free to come off chat, to come off mute if you want to add anything, or put it in the chat, but I'll tell you that what we see time and time again are students, Oh, okay, yes, I see someone here. Finn, go ahead.
Kate: Oh, sorry, hey, it's Kate, Abby. Yeah, it just… obviously, I was excited to write about my exciting topic, but then had to sort of go through the process of translating everything, right? Like, the O's into A's, and then I kept having to interrupt my train of thought to look back at the list of words, and… So initially, I thought, oh, I bet this exercise is going to show us that we'll write, like, twice as much on our favorite topic, and then, of course, that didn't happen because I had to keep interrupting myself to try and fit into the constraints that you'd given us.
Abby: Yes, absolutely, thank you. Yeah, so this is what we see, it's so common, right? We see, that, you know, the student writes the first time, you know, you guys, the participants, write the first time, and even though you have so much more to say on the second one, because it's about an interest, a passion, a hobby, something that you love, you end up having much less written, much less on the page. Often your handwriting is messier. You're crossing things out more. Sometimes it gets bigger because you're sort of, like, really slow with your writing and your thinking. And it feels very frustrating, so I think, that's something that we all hopefully experience, whereas this feeling like, oh, I have so much to say about this, and there's so little I can actually get out. And it's so frustrating.
Abby: And that's a bit of the experience that a Twice-Exceptional learner feels at school every day. Having all of these big ideas, these kind of, you know, wanting to talk about their experiences this summer on a trip somewhere, and saying, oh, this was awe-inspiring and incredible, and, you know, seeing the Grand Canyon was majestic, and yet, when a teacher asks them to write about it in their journal, they say something like, it was big. I mean, those are words they can spell, and that they know they can get out.
Abby: You may have also noticed I talked a little bit, during both times at the 32nd and the 1 minute mark. typically, folks didn't even notice I talked during the first one, you know, when we were talking about the morning, like, it didn't disrupt your flow. You were just writing. I may have said one or two things, no big deal. During the second one, when I talked about, hopefully you're doing your best work, keep it up, you know, your parents are gonna see this, suddenly you're just way out of the flow. Whatever you were writing, you got distracted, it was hard to concentrate. It felt more frustrating.
Abby: And again, these are things that when a student is struggling, even little things that may be innocuous for a neurotypical student become very distracting, and dysregulating for our neurodivergent students and our Twice-Exceptional students. So when we do these in simulations in person, we'll often see, and I think I saw Callie put it in the chat, we'll see, you know, teachers throwing down their pencils, or they start teasing their person next to them, like poking them or laughing. They're disrupting, and part of what they're doing there is that behavior that so many students start to do in a classroom when they can't meet the educational needs, the things they're being asked to do. You know, they respond with humor, or with distraction, or they get up and use the bathroom, or they refuse to participate. And again, it's that result of that mismatch between what they want to be able to produce and what they can.
Abby: So this is just a little taste of our simulation experience, but hopefully gives you just a little bit of a feeling of what it can feel like to feel like… to be a TUI student in a classroom. So now I want to dig a little bit more into some examples of Twice-Exceptional profiles. So… Got a lot going on on these screens, so I'm gonna have to close my chat. Okay.
Abby: So, this is kind of showing you what an expected profile for perhaps a neurotypical student might be. So just to kind of give you the landscape of what these next several slides look like, this is a single student, and we're looking at their social-emotional skills, their executive functioning skills, and their academic skills. And for our neurotypical student, they're basically meeting the dotted line, which is the age-based expectations in all of these areas. Now, every student will be a little different, right? So, in this particular example, the student maybe has slightly below age-based expectations in working memory, and slightly above in their emotional regulation. However, mostly, for the most part, if we were to draw a line between the top of all of these points along, all of these different elements, you would see a roughly straight line that roughly aligns with the dotted line of the age-based expectations.
Abby: Okay, so that's our expected profile. Now, let's walk through some examples of some 2E profiles. Now, this is a autistic and ADHD Twice-Exceptional student. So, in this example, we have… oop! I'm sorry, I don't know what happened. There we go. In this example, we have a child who has very high verbal and math reasoning skills, and they have a great memory for everything in their interests area, which includes planes, train schedules, maps. He can read very well, and he absorbs information like a sponge for anything that captures his interests and imagination.
Abby: However, despite the child's high interest in math and his ability to think and talk about complex math scenarios above those grade expectations, the child's math scores are showing up just around average, maybe slightly above. And he's having a lot of trouble completing basic assignments and having anxiety during math. So what's going on here? Well, the student has a slower than average processing speed, and they have challenges with writing. So in this case, even scores in the middle, so even that math performance seeming, as sort of as average, can feel like a major deficit to the kids, because their intellectual reasoning is so high.
Abby: So the disability is masking the high math ability, and the areas of strength are sometimes masking the depth of the impact of the disability, which makes the student appear to perform average in math, but it still feels very frustrating and confusing for this child. The child feels that math reasoning comes easily, but… and he's ready to sort of tackle advanced concepts. He's unmotivated by simple math worksheets. But he can't process information quickly or write a lot of answers, so he feels like a failure. So, because of all of this, like, dichotomy going on, this discrepancy, math can feel both too hard and too easy at the same time.
Abby: It's also interesting to notice where his social and emotional… his social skills and emotional regulation skills fall on this, diagram. Because of this, this child may not know how to show his frustration around math, and his behavior may reflect his frustration in ways that both he and his teacher find unexpected and confusing.
Abby: And here's another interesting example of a Twice-Exceptional student. This is a dyslexic Twice-Exceptional student. And this is maybe the early elementary example of a stealth dyslexic individual. So, stealth dyslexia, it may be… perhaps you attended our talk on this last week. It's one of the toughest areas of asynchronous development, because in the younger grades, the child does appear to be on track with their reading skills. And what they start to run into is maybe in fourth grade, or in middle school, or even later, that's when this starts to come to the forefront.
Abby: So for this particular child, in the early grades, the child's strengths are showing in the classroom and their performance. The lagging skills that they may have are near enough to age-based expectations that no one expects that it's a problem. This child enjoys reading on their own, and even passes a district screener, identifying them as a highly capable learner. But the child's core cognitive skills are masking a hidden reading disability.
Abby: And so as the child ages and moves into middle school, the academic demands increase, the expected reading level and speed are much higher, and the child starts to hit that wall. The child's struggling but doesn't understand why. The parents and teachers don't understand, the child seems so bright, creative, engaging, and verbal, but now he can't keep up and is frustrated. And so he stops turning in assignments, he starts to check out, his self-esteem plummets. And his, social confidence does in his interactions.
Abby: And unfortunately, it is easy for choice-exceptional children with this profile to fall under the radar. Universal screening for dyslexia in California hopefully will address some of these cases, but the cut scores for identification in the earliest grades when intervention is the most critical, are often low to catch kids with this profile. There's a… I have a quote here that this so-called stealth dyslexia results because of the individual's ability to compensate by their advanced thinking, get the gist of what they read, and appear to be sufficient readers when they actually have some form of difficulty with the core aspects of reading and writing.
Abby: Okay, and now let's talk a little bit about this profile. This is a ADHD and dysgraphic Twice-Ex-Exceptional student. This is a profile of a child in first grade. And in first grade, the child was very talkative, outgoing, creative, energetic boy who loved to read. And he and his friends were always coming up with imaginative games, stories, plans. His vocabulary, reading, and reasoning skills seemed really far beyond his age of 6.
Abby: But he was having trouble with a few things in the classroom. So first, he struggled to maintain his personal space during circle time, and was waiting… and didn't like to wait to be called on to contribute to his thoughts. So his enthusiasm and energy were always evident. Second, writing was a nightmare for him during a writer's workshop. He just couldn't put the pencil to paper. He tried to explain to the teacher that it hurt to write, but she didn't really understand what he meant. He knew how inventive, creative, and highly verbal he was, so she couldn't understand what was holding him back. Despite her best efforts, since she wanted him to be able to write, she would get frustrated and just say things like, try harder, pay more attention, just work your, you know, do your best.
Abby: And by 3rd grade, the child just felt that there was something wrong with them, and they didn't know why they couldn't do the work. But after a comprehensive evaluation, we learned this… he learned this child was ADHD and dysgraphic, and when he said it hurt to write as a first grader, he really meant it literally. And once he was given the accommodation to type, things improved. Adhd continued to be a struggle. But he realized over time that as long as he could advocate for his needs and let people know who he was and what he needed, it… he made things more successful for him.
Abby: And now we have a profile of an autistic individual, autistic Twice-Exceptional individual, and this scenario highlights a common challenge in 2E learners, around girls who are 2E, particular girls who are autistic or have ADHD, because they are commonly overlooked. In fact, research does indicate that autistic girls without a co-occurring intellectual disability are identified as autistic on average 3 years later than their male counterparts. Again, because they seem to experience learning and attention challenges rather than neurodevelopmental delays. And because those outward behaviors are not manifesting, people kind of are confused by them, and it takes longer for them to be diagnosed.
Abby: So in this example, we have a student, who you can see was far above in many of her age-based expectations. However, sometimes trouble would crop up in writing. If she wasn't able to write about something that interests her, she appeared to lack motivation or ability to get started. She pushed back on math worksheets. She argued about them doing longer than it would just take to get them done. And she was, again, meeting those age-based expectations, but it was really a struggle to get her to do the work.
Abby: And also socially, she was really struggling making friends. She resisted going to school, she didn't like how other students would hum and whistle, it would make her emotionally dysregulated, and then she would try to leave the classroom. Working in a group made her nervous, and she would pick at her skin, to the point where she would have dozens of scabs. Finally, before 7th grade, a comprehensive evaluation identified her as autistic with general anxiety disorder, and by this time, unfortunately, a lot of damage had been done, and self-esteem was low, but she really focused on learning about her own sensory, experiences and emotional regulation strategies, and really helped her turn the corner to develop that strong drive for independence and understanding.
Abby: And the last profile I'll talk about is this individual who is dyslexic and ADHD, and this is a student who was identified early, and we were able to see how the early intervention made a difference for them. From a really young age, this child was sort of called a little lawyer, you know, quick talker, very clever, very verbose, full of ideas, but never wrote anything down. Loved to talk. But didn't read despite intensive support. And so, unfortunately, not only his reading skills fell behind, but he struggled with math because there were so many word problems in his math. And he was very animated in class and struggled to sit still.
Abby: But starting in second grade, he was able to receive dyslexia interventions, and tutoring was very, effective due to his early interventions and early identification. Meanwhile, teachers provided accommodations, which allowed him to shine in his areas of strength, despite his reading and writing struggles. He also began medication for ADHD, which helps him stay focused and on task in class. His confidence and success grew. And his emotional regulation went up because he was less anxious about being misunderstood. I think this, is a good story of what's possible when children are identified and supported, especially at an early age, whenever possible.
Abby: So, we talked about a lot of different profiles, right? All these different kids, I think 5 different kids, and all of their different strengths and struggles. So, TUI kids, in so many ways, are their own unique individuals. But there are some commonalities we can look for across 2E individuals. So we can see some distinguishing strengths of our 2E kids. Our passionate interests. Again, that's a theme you saw many times throughout all 5 different students. They've got those passionate interests. A strong sense of justice and fairness, and a drive to learn.
Abby: And then at the same time, complex challenges such as anxiety. Written production, interestingly, that seems to span across a lot of the neurodivergent, characteristics, from autism to dyslexia to dysgraphia and beyond. Social communications challenges, and often executive function.
Abby: And the consequences of life for these students, especially when they are not supported, understood, and given that chance to shine in their areas of strength, can be these experiences that we hear so often from parents around their students feeling frustrated, rejected, anxious, depressed, lonely, and having increased risks of many, you know, poor things such as school avoidance, employment challenges, low self-concept, etc. This can often be compounded when students come from culturally, linguistically, or economically diverse communities.
Abby: And we see this, you know, even amongst our own community, where in 2024, one of our REEL surveys reported that over 50% of parents reported that they're highly asynchronous Silicon Valley learner wasn't thriving in school. And so, we know this is an ongoing issue, an ongoing concern, and we want to figure out ways we can help support these students to be more successful in school, so that these things don't happen.
Abby: So how can we support these two e-learners? My number one suggestion, that we want to always emphasize is that we want to define all individuals through their strengths. So, whether we're looking at individuals, who make connections across disciplines, or Steve Jobs, who has this incredible 3D spatial perspectives and thinking, or Octavia Butler, whose skills with narrative reasoning, recalling stories, episodes, concepts like weaving these incredible, worlds together. These are individuals whose strengths come from their dyslexia.
Abby: Or we're thinking about Dave Pilkey with his creative out-of-the-box thinking. He wrote Captain Underpants and, I believe, Dogman series, I think that's what it's called. Very popular kids' books and comics and movies. Or Simone Biles with her enthusiasm, her dedication, and her drive. Or Richard Branson, whose risk-taking, adventurous, novelty-seeking, you know, curiosity has led him to become an incredibly successful entrepreneur. These are individuals who, again, harness the strengths of their ADHD to make them who they are and to make them successful.
Abby: Or we look at David Byrne with his knowledge, skill, and passion in his interest areas, or Sir Anthony Hopkins, whose intent focus on details really brings characters to life. Or Hannah Gadsby, a comedian who uses her sort of logic and her honesty in her humor. Again, these are individuals who are using the strengths that their autism brings to their lives and to their work. Again, when we think about the strengths of these, diagnoses. And we can see that these individuals are able to use them, in incredible ways. And it's not to say that all of our 2E or our neurodivergent individuals will one day be on a slide like this, but to say instead that there are gifts and strengths in all of these things. And, our work as parents and as educators is to find those things and nurture, and grow them to the best of our abilities and to their abilities.
Abby: Now, this is what we talk about when we're working with teachers. So, when we come to schools, we really focus on this strength-based learning and education, and we do this through the four lenses of the Dear REEL model. So we talk to schools about develop connection with these students, with all students, and especially with 2E students. Embrace flexible options for learning, attend to their strengths, emphasize those strengths, and reframe behaviors. And what I want to emphasize today is around attending to strengths, because I think this is something that starts at home, and that we can do, as parents, that is one of the most effective ways that we can make learning for Twice-Exceptional students, the most successful possible.
Abby: So everything starts with this base of strengths and interests. When we nurture and we understand our students' strengths and what their interests are, and we weave that in meaningfully throughout all of their day, throughout everything that they do, that's when all of the interventions and the accommodations become the most successful, and that's when we feel the teacher, the student, and the parent can really all work together towards that common goal of reaching and achieving their potential.
Abby: So how do we do that? So, the first strategy that I think is really important is to help them find their strengths, and there's a number of ways to do that. I think the first thing to do is to start by asking your child, talking with your child, and say, you know, what are some things you're curious about now? What interests you? Are there activities that maybe you've heard of from your friends, or from online, or somewhere that, you know, you'd like to try yourself? Are there any activities that you're doing at home, or you're doing at school, that you'd like to do more of? And what do you want to do and like to do when you have free time? That's the great conversation questions to ask your child to get them talking about what interests and excites them.
Abby: And you can also ask your child's teacher what gets your child excited? What subjects and activities seem to come naturally to them, or what do they gravitate to during a free time? And sort of, just generally, like, what are 3 great things about my child? I think that, we can uncover so many strengths, not just, not just academic interests, but also just understanding, you know, this, you know, my child always runs to the help of the other child when, you know, when something goes wrong in the class, or my child, is always the one that's lightening the room with humor. There are so many skills, interests, and strengths we can understand when we look at the whole child and really think about what are those things that make them so wonderful. And then we can really start building on that and growing that.
Abby: So, there are also a variety of tools you can use to do this, so if, you know, you can just ask questions, but if you like filling out forms and taking quizzes, there's plenty of those available online as well. We have a list, this document that you can get later, we'll send out this slide deck, and you can link to this. We have a whole list of strength-based assessment tools, many of them are free online, and that can help you if you'd like to use those to get started with your child.
Abby: The second strategy I want to talk about is shifting your perspective. To me, this is personally the one that I think is the most critical and the most important. This graphic does a great example of explaining it for ADHD individual. what this is showing here is, you know, on the left, an individual who's sort of defined by ADHD in a very traditional manner. A child who we'd say a lot of negative things about, like, oh, their ADHD means they're so impulsive and they're so loud, they're so fidgety and hyperactive. All of these negative words to describe that student or that child.
Abby: But instead, we should really be reframing this and thinking about all of the incredible gifts that a child with ADHD has. So a child with ADHD is… A risk taker. They're an incredible entrepreneur. They bring a lot of energy to any group project. They're that idea machine and that dreamer, someone that we need in our society, in our classroom, in our family, to be the best we can be. And, you know, when you think back to that slide with some of the individuals who had ADHD, the entrepreneurs, or, you know, Simone Biles, this incredible gymnast, she uses all of these positive characteristics of her ADHD to be the very best that she can be.
Abby: And I think that this is just so critical, whether we're talking about the gifts that come from dyslexia, or from autism, or, you know, ADHD, any of these things. When we shift our perspective, and we see what they bring to make a richer society, it changes the way we see our children, but also how we talk to them, but how we talk in our communities, amongst our friends and our family. And this is how we're going to make lasting change for these kids in the world, is when we authentically understand them, as these incredible gifts, and make sure everybody understands that as well.
Abby: The third strategy I want to talk about is then providing these opportunities to show and grow these strengths. So you've sort of done the work, you've talked to the teachers, you've done the, you know, the quizzes with your kids, or, you know, talked to them about what they want to do, you've understood and done some research, and you know what all of these gifts are that their, differences may bring. Now let's start to think about what are some opportunities that you can support them with to, grow those strengths at home, and outside of the classroom.
Abby: Now, it doesn't have to be… it can be a paid activity, like an enrichment, you know, an enrichment class, or something you sign them up for, but it doesn't have to cost anything. It can be just independent deep dives that they do, or some research. It can just be opportunities to get outside, play games. even do online gaming. There's plenty of ways that online gaming can improve individuals' strengths in, friendships, even in fine motor skills. So, many different ways that we can grow those strengths and interests.
Abby: And here are just a few examples of some ideas that have worked well with my family. One of them is… to really set expectations as a family that all of us are lifelong learners, and that we are all, working on certain things that we are interested in, or that we have strengths by, strengths in that we want to get better at. And so, as a parent, I will go to my children every, you know, every so often, and say, tell me what those strengths and interests are, and I will do a little research and come up with a few options for them of ways they can work on those strengths, or grow those interests.
Abby: And so I might come back to them and say, okay, I found this class you could join. I also came up with this idea, maybe you could do an independent project where you go, you know, online and do some research, and maybe you go to a museum, and then at the end you're going to present something you learned to our family, or to maybe a small group of friends. But I give them a handful of choices, and I say, make a commitment for 8 weeks to try one of these things, and then we'll check back in and see if this is working, and we want to keep doing it, or we want to do something else. But there's an expectation that all of us as adults and children, Are working to grow our strengths and interests. And we also do that by… in the summer, we'll often put up a growth chart where we check off what we've done every day towards our goals, whether it's you know, my goal to play more piano, or to, do more writing, or it's my child's goal to swim every day and read 10 books by the end of the summer. But we are all, as a family, doing this together.
Abby: The last thing I want to touch on is the importance of finding your community. There are highs and lows to these experiences, and it's hard to do it alone, and so I think, finding other folks that you can talk to, that you can ask authentic questions with, and, you know, get support from is just so important for your own health and for the health of, your family. This is a great poster that, that we put together based on some, mantras that one of our parents in our community wrote, that's something that she tells herself at the start of every year, and I think are all really, really important, things for all of us to remember. And, you know, this is the kind of support and, yeah, community that we can give one another when we're together. you know, I encourage you to join a REEL community, but there are also many other communities online, maybe in your local area, there are some. Find folks that you can share your wins and your struggles with.
Abby: So before I break for audience questions from you guys right here, I did want to address one or two questions that came up in the slide, in the questions that were pre-submitted. The first one I wanted to talk about was how to talk to your child about their diagnosis. I think that, really this all stems from what I talked about during that strength-based section here, but here are a few pointers that I would like to share with you. First, be honest. Students who are neurodivergent, students who are twice exceptional, they often… they understand something's going on. They know they're a little different than their peers, things seem to be different for one reason or another. If we try to hide that from them, it makes it seem shameful. And it's not shameful. In fact, the most successful Twice Exceptional children, neurodivergent children I know, are really proud of that neurodivergence. And the reason they're proud of it is they understand it, and they understand its gifts as well as the struggles, and they, have, like, fully owned and accepted that, and know it's nothing to be shamed… shameful of, or shamed about.
Abby: Which brings me to my next point. Be positive. There are a lot of wonderful things about being twice exceptional, and discuss these gifts with your child. But there's no need to sugarcoat it. Be realistic. Acknowledge there will be challenges, there are challenges. Make a plan to address them, but they don't need to be addressed all immediately. They can be addressed over time. And let your child know you have a plan, and you will support them in any way that, you know, they need, and that seems right for them. And when you do these things together, you are realistic, you are positive, and you are honest, then the students are able to get that confidence and really believe that strength-based focus, that's something that they're going to need that will help them be successful throughout life.
Abby: Finally, I'll suggest you use age-appropriate language, so meet your child where they are, and use examples and words they can understand, and encourage them to ask questions, and keep that dialogue going. That, you know, they might have questions, in a few weeks, or in a few months, or something may come up over the summer, and just make sure that that's an ongoing, open dialogue. Also just not amongst you and your child, but amongst your whole family, that this is something that we talk about, and that we are open to… always open to questions about.
Abby: There were also a number of questions around some things that REEL has a ton of great resources on, so I just wanted to point everyone to some of these things. Where can you learn more about neuropsychological evaluations? We have an entire document you can read about that, both in English and Spanish. Where can I get low-cost options for a lot of these things? We have an article that points you to some good low-cost resources. Where can I learn more about IEPs in my public school? We have, a public school IEP document specifically for how to use IEPs for 2E students, both in English and Spanish.
Abby: I also pointed you to a link to how you can use the Dear REEL model to evaluate schools, so as a parent, you can use those four lenses to look at how a student or how a school might be supporting a neurodivergent or twice-exceptional student. And we had a number of questions about, how do I partner with my school? So, help my teacher understand this, help my school understand this. We have… a number of toolkits, one of which is around how to partner with your school, which is full of resources of things you… slides and flyers you can give your teacher, things you can fill out and share with them, links you can point them to, and we have a number of other toolkits around different important key moments in the Twice-Exceptional journey.
Abby: And then lastly, I do have a huge amount of resources, of websites, and books and articles that after this talk, you'll get these links, and, you know, I encourage you to read more, learn more, and ask questions. So, thank you so much for coming today. I know we have only a few minutes left, but I'm happy to answer some questions, and you can always, as I mentioned, reach out to me via email. So thank you.
Yael: Thank you so much, Abby, that was so great. Although I've seen it several times, I pick up new things every time. So, we have quite a few questions. How do you get 2E written into an IEP, and how do you get a teen diagnosed as 2E? Is it a formal diagnosis?
Abby: Okay, I… it is not, like, a formal diagnosis in the sense that it's in the DSM. However, if you do a full neuropsych evaluation, especially with an evaluator who is familiar with the term twice exceptional, they will often write it and describe it in their reports. And, you know, each one may have a slightly different way of how they like to do that, but typically those reports will, if a child has a certain IQ score or other sort of high scores in some ways, it might be in their individual scores or their full score. not to go into too many details, and then also has some of the diagnosed challenges. They may, they may put that in there. And I think this is something you might, when you're evaluating an evaluator, you want to ask them about their familiarity with that concept, and how they, choose to address it in their reports.
Yael: Thank you. And we do have a talk that maybe we can put in the chat, too, about how to get some of this into an IEP. And if you read our IEP guide that Callie put in the chat, there are 48 pages there about how to get all this information into your IEP. Does the lack of emotional regulation, because you were showing slides where the emotional regulation was low, appear in classroom settings most of the time for TUI learners, or is it possible it appears at home and is masked at school?
Abby: Yes, absolutely. Short answer, yes, but longer answer, I mean, I think there are common, many different ways that that emotional regulation struggle can manifest, right? So it can manifest by a student acting out in a certain way in a classroom, but it can often be that a student is holding that in all day, and then releasing it when they're at home, when they feel comfortable with their parents. And then what will commonly happen is teachers, if you… if a parent comes and talks to the teachers, they'll say, well, they're fine in school, but you know what's going on at home. And this is something that we talk a lot about with teachers as well. And we give them examples of students who are like this, so that they can come to understand that sometimes those things aren't visible to them, but they are still real.
Yael: Thank you. Okay, my son is 2E, Audihd, his biggest struggle is writing, in that he won't write if he doesn't know how to spell, and he seems to take that as a personal failure. We have tried to do typing games, but there are sometimes point out when you get things wrong, so he shuts down from this as well. Curious for suggestions. So it sounds like being blocked by perfectionism from…
Abby: Yeah.
Yael: what you know.
Abby: Yeah, I… it's hard to give a specific, you know, example or, you know, ideas without knowing exactly everything that's been tried or what's going on, but I would generally suggest allowing the child to write without any corrections whatsoever, right? Like, and just let them write… write everything out, and then only later, and perhaps even after talking with them, saying, you know, this is incredible, I love, you know, what you did here and all of the ideas, are you open to sitting down with me now and working through this and looking at ways we can correct the language? And if you kind of get their buy-in… I'm sorry, the spelling. And then if you get their buy-in, they may be more willing to work on that afterwards, after they get everything out.
Yael: Thank you, and we actually also did a three-part writing series, last school year, that you can search for on our site, to get a lot more ideas about, how to support kids with writing. Do you have any resources to help with reading comprehension in middle school? What do you do in general to help a middle schooler? Yeah.
Abby: again, you know, it's… I'm trying… because there's so many different things that may or may not help, depending on the child, but, you know, audiobooks is something that helps with reading comprehension for a lot of students, I know my daughter, it actually helps her with her comprehension more if not only is she listening to the audiobook, but is actually following along with the text. That was something that was actually new to me. I knew that I knew that schools are always telling kids to follow along because it helps them learn to read, but also it seems to help comprehension, at least in her case. So, there are different, you know, different, alternatives. But… but those are just some ideas for some accommodations, yeah.
Yael: Thank you. Okay, last question. A couple people asked about sports. Can sports be part of 2E? Can physical giftedness, count for 2E?
Abby: I think that, at REEL, we define you know, we are not gatekeeping Twice-Exceptionality in any way, so if in any way you feel that that, you know, makes your child Twice-Exceptional, I think that we're very welcoming. I think that, yes, there can definitely be kids who are gifted in a variety of ways and many ways. Yeah.
Yael: And we, I dropped a, article in the chat that was written by a mom whose child is a champion world skier, and he can't pass school PE. So, I thought that might be relevant. Thank you so much, Abby, and thank you all for joining. We're so glad that all of you joined us today to learn more about Twice-Exceptionality, and you can join our website, to look up a lot of the questions that you, asked today, if you want more information. You can always reach out to us. So thank you all so much. Lots of love for you, Abby. Look at all these hearts exploding.
Abby: Everyone, thanks for coming.
